The lightest scalar nonet

Abstract

First I review some previous work on the lightest scalars below 1.5 GeV, and how these scalars can be understood as unitarized nonet states. The bare scalars are strongly distorted by hadronic mass shifts, and the lightest I=0 state becomes a very broad resonance of mass and width of about 500 MeV. This is the sigma meson required by models based on linear realization of chiral symmetry. Recently the light sigma has clearly been observed in D decay to 3 pions by the E791 experiment at Fermilab and I discuss how this decay channel can be predicted in a Constituent Quark Meson Model, which incorporates heavy quark and chiral symmetries. At the end I discuss the likely possibility that there are in fact two light scalar nonets, such as one mainly meson-meson (or 4-quark) nonet and one qq bar nonet. I point out that an interesting approximate description of this could be modelled by starting with two coupled linear sigma models. After gauging the overall symmetry one of these could be looked upon as the "Higgs sector of strong interactions", and the lightest scalar nonet becomes the corresponding Higgs nonet.